


Exanimation

by B100b100d



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Alternate universe- Beta Kids never met, Blood, Blood and Gore, Deadstuck, Drug Abuse, Gore, Humanstuck, Multi, Red Romance, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombiestuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-23 06:04:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3757192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/B100b100d/pseuds/B100b100d
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been five years since the living dead rose from their graves and consumed Earth's population, and in those five long years Jade Harley has made a life for herself on her Island- albeit a very lonely one. When the first boat of survivors Jade's ever seen arrives on her doorstep, her quiet, solitary existence is shattered forever. As more survivors arrive, Jade must make a choice; Fight for her life, or flee into the unknown. Will Jade escape with her friends safely, or will she find herself alone in the ruins of a dead society?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**CHAPTER ONE: PROLOGUE.**

* * *

 

 

_I have been one acquainted with the night._  
_I have walked out in rain- and back in rain._  
_I have outwalked the furthest city light._  
_I have looked down the saddest city lane._  
_I have passed the watchman on his beat_  
_And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain._  
_I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet_  
_When far away an interrupted cry_  
_Came over houses from another street,_  
_But not to call me back or say good-by;_  
_And further still at an unearthly height,_  
_One luminary clock against the sky_  
_Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right._  
_I have been one acquainted with the night._

_-Acquainted with the night- Robert frost._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was a still day out when the world ended, calm, serene and warm. Birds were singing in a symphony of sheer happiness to be alive, the waves lapped hungrily at the beach mere minutes from the safety of your lofty home, and the sky was the most brilliant azure imaginable, littered with swollen Cumulus clouds so woolly and porous that you could swear they had been shorn straight off of a sheep’s back. It’s ironic, really, that all human civilisations had to collapse on such an outstanding day. It didn't end for you, per se, but certainly for every other person in the world. One of the many perks of living on a small, secluded island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean by yourself is that when the recently deceased begin to awaken and feast on the flesh of anything that moves, breathes or bleeds is that you escaped doom and disaster without so much as a scratch.

You wish that the rest of Earth’s 7 billion people were as lucky.

It all started five years ago today, on the 13th of April, in Washington State, in the sleepy suburban town of Maple Valley. That was ground zero, after the first reports of the dearly departed rising from the grave hit the news, it was happening all over the United States, and before long, all over the world.

Horrible images filled every news article and broadcast; blood, gore, dead lining the streets in macabre rows, gunfire in the background of every live interview, the shouts and screams of the innocent dying; a sickening melody overtop the erratic rhythms. At first, it seemed like an extremely elaborate prank concocted to scare the living bejeezuz out of you. Every corner you rounded should have had a couple of hundred people behind it, some dressed up as zombies, some not. Your heart beat faster in your chest, excitement mounting as the shouts of “April Fools!” echoed in your ears, shouts you would never hear. The entire world was in on it, definitely. You would get this big dizzy grin on your face as the scenario played out in your head. Yes, definitely. Obama, Putin, and The Queen were in on it, all the world leaders, sitting around a conference table, discussing how to best scare you; an innocuous preteen girl living smack dab in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from very much of anything. At what point the idea stopped bringing you humour or hope you can’t be certain. But now instead of a giddy grin all you get is a sour grimace glued to your face for the rest of the afternoon whenever the memory happens to resurface.

“Two hundred and eight dead in Massacre on Broadway, NYC- 300 units sent in.”  
“Refugee centre in London decimated, no survivors.”  
“US President calls world specialists together to create a cure.”

After a while the initial flood of articles and news began to slow to a trickle as more and more people fell victim to the sickness, days would pass without so much as a single update on any popular social networking site, news station, or government site. Where sites like Instagram used to be buzzing with activity and energy; especially leading up to and during the apocalypse; there is now an eerie silence. The last photo on your feed was taken on the top of a very tall building. The photo is a medium shot of a young woman from above and behind; the only thing between her and certain death- a hair’s width of open space. She’s brushing her unruly crinkly hair behind an ear filled with silver and gold studs, wiping the other one free of blood onto her grubby tank top. Below are the dead. Blood stains the pavement they shuffle forward, hands all reaching silently upward as if she’s their god- their salvation. Even from at least twelve stories, their hands are captured, unmistakable, grasping at empty air. A crowd of them pushes up against the doors, pounding with enough force that leaves hairline fractures and radial splinters in the glass below. Her head dangles, as if in prayer, shoulders drooping, relaxed to the extreme. She’s home, putting on makeup, getting ready for a date with that special someone, drawing on lipstick, humming show tunes under her breath, not perched precariously on a city rooftop a split second from a sticky demise. An angry red bite mark peeks out from underneath her right-hand strap, gore splattered across the nape of her neck; Raspberry jam on Pumpernickel bread. The photo is captioned six simple words.

 

“ ** _We’re jumping together. We regret nothing_**.”

 

It was striking for some reason, intimate, but with an extremely casual element. They, on the edge of death, documented their last moments; this was their will and testament. All they wanted was for people to remember them as they were.

After that, it wasn't long before all communication with the outside world went down. Power grids switched off, broadcasts were cut, and the world went silent. From time to time rough static from the radio would break into a frantic voice, some calling for help, others offering it. The messages stopped a few months after the grids shut down, and from then on, you really were well and truly alone. 

You got by, though. Life went on as usual. You recycle rain water (and sea water), and the generator in your basement keeps the house well-lit. Food supplies were never of much concern either. The fruit and vegetables you grew way back when have taken off, devouring every inch of spare space in your greenhouse, vines snaking over every surface and curling out the open window and down the side of the building. They work their way into the stone surface like tiny drills. They grow thick as your arms now, pumpkins and squash springing bountifully out from each tendril. The garden eventually expanded outside, carrots and potatoes in prim lines on the hillsides by your home, tomatoes, cucumber, Bok Choy, and eggplants, capsicum and Sweet corn also grow in abundance. There are a couple of apple trees around the place too, Bananas love the tropical climate and go nuts, and Lemon trees also do fairly well. Your bedtime companions are the small strawberry plants you keep in homemade pots by your bedside, filling the air with the sweet fragrance of ripening fruit.

Your chest once contained your valuables, but now contains what seed packets you have yet to use- and a few containers of ones you’ve collected off of the plants you’ve grown. The ones you don’t use are pretty high maintenance, aren’t compatible with the climate, or they’re flowers- which you do use on occasion to brighten up the place. When all else fails, you fish in the lagoon by the temple, legs dangling in the mossy green water, or go hunting up the mountain. Rabbits and goats are common the further up you get. Red deer dart in and out of vision, always in the corner of your eye. Life on the island couldn’t get much easier. Life on the island couldn’t get much lonelier.

A few weeks before everything went down, Grandpa went on another expedition to parts unknown, and he never returned. Your Grandpa could pick up a man three times his size and sling him over his shoulder like a child. He once wrestled a great white shark while shooting an apple off of the queen’s head with his rifle. He could take two rust cans, a piece of string, and a handful of sawdust and make the world’s first sawdust-powered weapon of mass destruction. He would be okay, he had to be. Days passed sitting at the window, staring out over the horizon. Any minute now the boat would appear, white wake tailing behind it, your Grandpa standing proudly in the bow of the ship, holding aloft the decapitated head of some new creature he’d hunted, or waving around a new treasure map. Maybe he would even have a present for you. Days passed, weeks passed, months, years, and still no sign of him. All that childish hope slowly drained out of your heart, down your body, and out through your feet into the ground. Since then, you’ve been alone.

And so this is the way it is, days spent sitting in your room’s window overlooking the bay. Habit draws you back today, legs curled up underneath you, zoning out to the sounds of the waves kissing the sand. It’s relaxing here. Hours can pass by in the blink of an eye; whether a project is being furthered, or time is being wasted, it all passes the same. A few weeks ago you spent an entire day just sitting on your bed overlooking the bay, didn’t water the plants, didn’t do the dishes, just sat and zoned out. Sometimes you draw. Sometimes you write. Tinker with parts or play bass. Today you sit cross-legged on your bed. Warm sunlight spills into the room, toasting your already freckled brown skin. You are a lizard basking in the sunlight.

The bed sheets are silky against your bare legs. You allow your eye to trace the smooth curves of the bay outside, cerulean water washing lazily onto golden sands. The saline air traces patterns on the nape of your neck, brushing past you into your room. It tickles your tongue and flirts with your taste buds. The strawberries are especially fragrant today, the sweet smell of fruit mingling with the salty sea air to create something new and tangy. Gulls glide to and fro, lamenting cries somehow haunting as they drift weightlessly through the air.

The frog temple rises into the sky, hard lovat coloured stone cutting the soft blue with its bulging eyes and bow-legs, vines hanging off of and growing out of every crevice. It is ancient, and somehow familiar, yet you’ve never ventured inside. In the corner of your eye you notice the vast slopes of the dormant volcano sweeping up out of sight, jagged slopes piercing the sky like so many tiny knives. A pair of goats weave their way betwixt them, heading up the mountain, heading for higher ground. Your eye finally settles on the sky, enormous, all-encompassing, and impossibly blue. It’s almost oppressive, bearing down on the tiny island, suffocating. Far in the distance it crashes into the ocean, a tiny line separating two very different worlds; blue on blue.

Far in the distance you notice it; a small white scar on the ocean’s back, a thin line of wake jetting across the open sea. There’s a boat out there. A bomb explodes in your stomach, and thousands of questions clamour to be answered within your mind.

You have no idea what this means for you or your way of life, but you have a distinct feeling that it can’t be anything good.


	2. New Arrivals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jade encounters the strange intruders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol i swear I'll update more frequently maybe.

The boat is finally here. It judders to a rough halt, scraping the sand in the shallow water, groaning as it beaches itself. It’s getting close to night time now, the rosy fingers of dusk began to clutch desperately at the sky not too long ago, trying to keep the darkness at bay, but as the sun slips below the horizon, the night wins, and black shadows creep ever closer , encroaching further into your cozy room. The whine of the motor had persistently gotten more indignant throughout the course of the evening, slowly turning into a wail as the vessel drew nearer.

The lights are off in your room, and the night creeps into the room. Faint stars that illuminate the sky, thousands of tiny shards of ice, are the only source of light. The moon is but a tiny sliver of white lodged in the roof of the world. The darkness sends a shiver down your spine. It feels as if some horrible creature is standing behind you, exhaling stale breath upon your neck, ready to open its cavernous maw and chomp into your soft, squishy flesh. You resist the urge to look over your shoulder, instead redoubling your efforts to see through the gloom down to the beach.

Uncertainty twists treacherously in your guts. Who are these people? Have they brought the infection with them? How many of them are there? What are their intentions? So many unanswered questions buzz frantically through your head. The one that occupies the forefront of your brain, nagging and poking at your skull, is a simple, yet all-consuming “Why?”

It’s been five years without any word of survivors; you’d assumed that you were probably just the only one left.

But here they are- a motley band that you can barely see in the fast-fading light, jumping off the starboard-bow of the ship- a small fishing boat painted blue and white. You spot lots of dark skin and tattered clothing, but that’s about all that you can make out from this distance in this light, and that doesn’t do you a whole lot of good. You think that you can make out the vague shapes of them- two men and a woman by the looks of it, and as you make this conclusion one of the vaguely-boyish shaped blobs flicks on a torch, warm light cutting the veil of the night. It probes the beach before them, before turning and pointing in the direction of the forest before your house. The blob lifts an arm, and points directly at your house. Ice fills your veins. Whether or not they know you are here, these people pose a very real threat.

Before comms went dead, there were all sorts of horrible stories over the radios about people fighting amongst one another, killing each other over food and guns, and even one or two stories in which people were using the dead as weapons, a new and sick type of chemical warfare…

These people look ordinary enough, but as they start the trek from the beach up to your house, you know that you have to make a decision. Your rifle sits in the shadows against your windowsill, and a familiar sense of comfort fills you when you wrap your fingers around the cold steel of its barrels. It glints on the pseudo-light, dark pinks and blues glinting wickedly back at you.

Whatever intentions these people have, you can never be too prepared. You hastily load it, slipping into a warm woolen coat to protect yourself from the probing fingers of cold air and steeling yourself for whatever might happen. Although the walk from the sea only takes perhaps twenty minutes at most, a lot of the journey is through dense forest with thick cover, and unless you know where you’re going, it’s easy to get lost, especially at night. The floor of the forest is overgrown too, and any movements that they make will be given away by the crack of the twigs that litter the ground. It’s highly likely that you’ll find them a long time before they even make it half way to your house. You head downstairs, transportalizing to the lowest floor of your home. Your shoes stay tucked into their rack by the back door; it’ll be easier to conceal yourself with bare feet. You’ll move much quieter. After a moment of consideration, you quickly make your way to the front door, bolting it closed from the inside. If these people kill you, you sure as hell don’t want them lousing up your stuff and taking advantage of the plentiful resources that you have been blessed with. If they are indeed pirates, you won’t give them the satisfaction of stealing your belongings.

Although almost all light has faded from the small island, there’s still a stretch of about one hundred metres of open grass and vegetable gardens between you and the safety of tree cover, and if you’re not too careful, one of the strangers might spot you. When you’re certain that the intruders are under the trees- and more importantly, out of sight- you set off, quietly but hurriedly jogging down the hill, taking one of your secret deer trails through the foliage towards your unknown visitors.

You descend into total darkness.

It takes a few minutes for your eyes to adjust to the gloom, and you blink a couple of times to clear the white specs in your vision. It’s eerily still at night on the island, it’s like the whole place just shuts down. The only sound that breaks the quiet is the faint hiss of the sea through the trees, providing you with a direction to head in. The trees twist up and away- out of sight, gnarled branches plunging themselves into the stifling cover of leaves overhead. Everything is shadows, everything is silent.

The adrenalin that coursed through every inch of your being only moments ago is already beginning to wear off. Weariness sets in; paranoia sinks its teeth into your skull.

What if you die here? What if you are shot dead and your bones are left to rot in the leaf-littered soil? What if one of them is infected, and it gets into your bloodstream, wreaking havoc on your immune system, until you come back, dead, but still walking?

You can hear them, now. They’re making faster progress than you anticipated, eager to explore, eager to reach you. And here they come, blundering through the undergrowth, cursing and swatting at plants, and laughing. It’s a strange and foreign sound when it hits your ears, bubbly, and giddy, you’d almost forgotten what it sounded like, the way it tugs at the corners of your mouth, willing you to smile along with them. The sound wafts through the trees, urging you forward. Leaves smack and swish against each other as they push on, one of them seems to be…. Singing? Rapping? Under…. His- you get the distinct feeling that the voice is male- breath. The other masculine voice seems to be laughing, still. What a strange group they sound like, tramping through the deserted forest in the middle of the night, lacking any element of stealth or subtlety.

You see their flash light piercing the darkness before you see them, and freeze, concealing yourself behind a large knotted tree that resembled a New Zealand Rimu, but more squat. You imagine that they probably had the same ancestor millions of years ago, a small seed floating through the islands in the pacific to settle in the volcanic soil on your island, growing and breeding until its descendant came to live as the tree that caresses your fingers with its rough bark. After a moment of being lost in thought about trees and botany and seeds, you snap out of your reverie, chiding yourself for getting distracted by plant-life when your own life may be in jeopardy. You creep forward on your toes, crouching low to stay safely hidden behind the scrub should the torch beam swing your way.

Then they’re in eye shot, only about ten or so metres away, if you make any sudden movements now, they’ll spot you in a heartbeat. They swat at branches and stretch out their legs- which are presumably still wobbly from the journey here- as they make their way noisily through the undergrowth.

Yep, it was just like you hypothesised, two men and a woman, younger than you’d expected though, maybe only a little older than you, if not the same age.

Two of them- one of the boys and the girl- have extremely fair, and wildly curly, crinkly hair, probably bleached judging by their naturally dark skin, and their features are extremely similar, you almost double-take thinking that they’re the same person. It occurs to you that they must be twins, same wide nose, same wide but delicate jawline, but you can’t be sure about their eyes because one of them- the boy- is wearing dark shades with conceal his, but the girl has bright and unsettlingly purple irises, which startle you when the glow of the torchlight swings around to face her momentarily, just front boy asking about the direction they should head in. She nods further on onto the blackness, and in a very prim and proper voice laced with subtle wit, says “The way we’ve been going seems a suitable enough direction to me.”

Something about the one with glasses captivates you. You study the way he moves, how he remains relatively isolated from the others- trailing at the back of the group with his head low. Your gaze fixes on his lips, and you realise he’s the one rapping, judging by the rapid pace in which they move as the words tumble out. They look full, soft, and remind you of ripe fruit. You suddenly have an inexplicable urge to try and see what they taste like. You shake the intrusive thought loose, deeply unsettled by its sudden appearance, and concentrate on the task at hand. None of them have noticed you yet; they’re too focused in their attempts to bash their way through the brush to have properly surveyed their surroundings.

The boy at the head of the pack scrubs a hand over his eyes, deep blue irises peeking between his fingers like sunlight through the surface of the ocean, and stretches his lanky arms high above his head, grinning merrily, as if he had not a care in the world, as if it hadn’t ended. His hair is wild and unruly; a series of waves cresting and crashing on top of his skull, and his skin is almost as dark and tanned as yours. Either he must spend a lot of time in the sun, or he’s of Pacifica descent, like you. He’s tall, probably the tallest out of all of them, with a build that vaguely resembles that of a palm tree, tall and skinny, all elbows and knees that could cut through glass, but he walks with a strange, care-free swagger one wouldn’t usually see in someone around his age. A pair of rectangular glasses sits perched upon his nose. He looks, to you, like a total nerd.

After glancing over all of them again, you decide that they’re probably not as much of a threat as you originally thought them to be, it’s more likely that they’re just a few scavengers who stumbled across your home and decided to go exploring. They seem harmless enough. But that sure as hell doesn’t mean that you trust them.

You barely breathe or move a muscle as they tromp past, giggling and making merry, totally unaware of your presence. A plan begins to formulate itself inside your brain, if you wait till they get to your house, it’ll be too late, and you’ll have lost the element of surprise. Your mind calculates the possibilities. It would probably be best, you decide, to challenge them in the forest. There are heaps of trees to disappear into should things go South, and you have getaway options whichever direction you head in. Hopefully when you demand an explanation of what they’re doing here, they won’t act aggressively, but if it comes to that…. Well, you’ve got at least one bullet in your gun for each of them… and one for yourself should the unthinkable happen.

Lifting a small, rounded stone out from the earthy covering of the forest floor, you lob it in the direction that the people are going, a little to the left of the trail, aiming for the trunk of a large and wide palm growing straight up into the sky. The stone hits the tree and ricochets off of it into the bushes across the undergrowth, creating a loud thunk sound against the wood, and a series of rustles as it dives into the dirt.

“What was that?”

The boy of the twins has stopped; turned in the direction you’d thrown the stone. Concern creases his forehead as the other two grind to a halt, listening intently. Palm-tree boy whispers; “What is it?”

He moves closer to the edge of the wilds, his flashlight cutting through the shadows, a searchlight looking for any movement. You crawl on the pads of your feet, moving past them through the undergrowth. Wait. You stiffen as the beam cuts the darkness just above your head. Every single instinct is screaming at you to run before you’re caught, if you get to the house, maybe you could defend it, and maybe you could hole up in there until they left you alone…. Or starved you out… You dismiss the thought, staying stock still until the beam moves onto the next section of bush.

“Are you sure that you’re not hearing things again, Dave?” Purple-eyes asks jokingly, “I seem to remember analysing a dream of yours recently that spoke of your tendency to be paranoid at times. Perhaps my analysis was correct.”

You hear the humour in her voice, but there’s fear laced beneath it. She’s as scared as either of them, but she’ll never show it.

“Maybe Rose is right,” Palm-tree boy says, “We should keep moving. I wanna find a real bed to sleep on tonight, and then I’m not gonna leave it for weeks.”

Fruit-lips sighs, grunting something unintelligible under his breath as the group reluctantly moves on. You grab another rock, a larger one this time, and hurl it in the direction that these people came from. It crashes into the undergrowth, loud, and impossible to ignore. Everyone in the group stiffens. Palm-tree boy moves between the twins, a large and bony index finger glued to his lips, his eyes as wide as dinner plates. He takes up the rear position in the group, darting his torch beam back and forth as he cautiously calls into the gloom; “Hello?”

Taking advantage of their distraction, you move forward, behind the group, and slowly creep onto the path a few metres behind the girl.

“Is someone there?” Palm-tree boy calls out again. All eyes are on the path in front of them.

You stand, sizing them up now you’re up close. You’re taller than both of the twins, almost as tall as palm-tree, but easily twice as wide. The twins are both medium height and stocky, and if they ganged up on you it mightn’t be a fair fight, but you’ve spent your life climbing and running and being outside, and you know you’re easily twice as strong as them. None of them are armed- or at least they don’t keep any weapons where you can see them, or anywhere they could easily reach them. You have the upper hand.

You remove your gun using the strap holding it to your back, cold metal glinting faintly in the torch-light. You relish the feel of it as you load it, bullets sliding into place with a cold and distinct click of steel on steel.

“Yeah, I’m right here,” you say, stepping forward to press to barrel of your gun against the back of purple eyes- Rose’s head.

All three of them turn towards you, slowly, cautiously, shock widening the eyes and dropping the jaws of the boys. Rose, however, swallows her fright in an instant, and regards you with a cold stare, composed in a millisecond in the face of death.

What must you look like to them?

You’ve always been tall and widely built with large Pacifica hips and a naturally muscled physique, but in recent years you’ve given up cutting your hair, given up on shaving, and you take showers less to conserve water. You’re impressed that this Rose girl can be so calm in the face of a gun-wielding tarzan-esque figure.

Palm-tree boy gulps and pushes Rose to the side, once again taking the head of the group- stepping between them and the gun. He protects them with such self-assurance, and moves quickly and effortlessly despite his gangly frame. He raises his hands in a gesture of surrender, a friendly-yet-cagey smile painted across his features.

“Now let’s not do anything hasty!” he laughs nervously, sticking a tentative hand towards one of your own, “Hi, my name’s John.”

You don’t shake it, but instead, suspiciously regard it. After thirty awkward seconds of silence, he retracts his hand sheepishly.

“We won’t hurt you, we promise.”

“I’m not putting the gun down,” you say. You eye him up, re-adjusting the gun to point at his face before speaking again, “Now you’re going to answer all of my questions, or Palm-tree boy here eats shot-gun shells for dinner.”

Fruit-lips snorts in the back.

“Ha ha holy shit. Palm-tree boy.”

You find it a little strange that he physically voiced the laugh instead of actually laughing. You ignore him, keeping your eyes locked with John’s, searching them for any signs of treachery. John bobs his head solemnly, trying to hold back a curious smile, and failing rather miserably. He’s all ears.

You lick your lip, teeth scraping against them as you struggle to formulate coherent sentences in your brain.

“Why are you here?”

John smiles, a genuine smile- one with his teeth and it takes you by surprise, irritation buzzing behind your eyes that he’s not really taking your threat very seriously at the moment.

“We’ve been travelling for weeks now,” he replies, “We used to live on the mainland, I lived in Maple Valley, the first town to be hit by the dead.”

He adjusts his glasses, other arm still raised in surrender, “I thought it was pretty cool at first, it was just like in the movies! I was a little disappointed that they were like, shambling zombies though, running zombies are so much scarier, and would have been more realistic.”

Rose rolls her eyes behind John she shares a knowing look with Fruit-lips, one of two people sharing exasperated affection for their strange friend.

You move the barrel of your gun further forward, pushing it into Palm-tree’s nose. That shuts him up, but doesn’t wipe the stupid, almost buck-toothed grin off of his face.

“I didn’t ask you for your life’s story,” you glare at him to show him that you mean business- serious business, “I asked you why you’re on my island.”

He grins, displaying two rather large buck teeth. “My sister lives here!” Your brow crinkles, weighed down by the implications of his statement. You’re the only one who lives here. He nods as he speaks, excitement positively glowing in his eyes, “My dad told me that I was adopted when everything started, and he told me that I had a sister who was a little older than me who was adopted by his uncle… can you guess who that is?”

John’s grin stretches even wider as he sees the realization dawn on your face, the disbelief, shreds of doubt lingering in your eyes, seeds of mistrust sprouting in your chest. This can’t be true.

“You’re LYING,” you snarl, squeezing the life out of the gun in your anger and confusion, “You’re here to kill me, aren’t you! You just want to earn my trust before you stab me in the back!!”

Palm tree- John, takes a step back in surprise, obviously not anticipating your reaction.

“No, I swear, I really am your brother!”

“SHUT UP!” you yell, swiveling the gun furiously skyward, firing off three rapid-fire shots into the greenery above you.

What follows is an almost unearthly silence as everyone holds their breath. The only sound you can hear is the blood pounding in your ears, adrenaline rushing through your veins. You shake off your feelings of unease and confusion, stepping forward once again to brandish your weapon, this time pressing up hard on the underside of John’s chin.

The twins shift uneasily, and as Rose shifts her skirt to the side, a glint of silver under the torch-light reveals a machete the size of your arm- strapped to her leg. It glitters menacingly in the light. It appears that you misjudged this wayward group of vagabonds. They appear to be more capable than you initially thought.

John’s adam’s apple bobs all the way back up, and then all the way back down under the nose of the rifle. You stare him in the face, locking eyes with him. In a single look, you tell him that if he does not tell you the irrevocable truth, or you will kill him. In a single look, he tells you that he understands.

Wordlessly, John slowly lowers his left hand, and digs it into the pocket of his tattered cargo shorts. He produced a worn piece of paper, slowly raising it until it’s at your eye level. You stare at it, desperately trying to compute what your eyes are relaying to your brain. You are sure that they must be playing tricks on you.

It’s a photograph. It depicts three people- two men and one woman. One of the men- the youngest in the image by far, sits in the centre of the photo, wearing a starched, crisp suit. He’s in his late twenties, maybe, and sitting perched atop his neatly ironed suit-pants is a large, frosting-laden cake with “Happy birthday!” written on it in a flowery font. The man’s sharp, serious features have been softened by a warm smile.

You take the photo in your left hand, fingers brushing over the crisp paper, willing your brain to be still and quiet, to let you make sense of all this.

An older woman stands behind him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. Her face is one massive, impish grin, all teeth and gums, wrinkles etched into every surface of her face- skin like old leather. Her hair is wispy, as if made of cloud, and a pair of bright red glasses sits perched atop her button nose. Standing next to her is the final figure. He’s tall, burly, an older man adorned in explorer gear, grinning like a mad-man with a hand on the younger man’s shoulder. With his spare hand, he twirls one side of his handle-bar mustache between his forefinger and thumb. He’s young, younger than you ever saw him, but it is unmistakably your grandpa.

You flip the photo over. On the back, in tall, neat letters is the following passage:

 

 

_To my Strapping young Nephew,_

_Congratulations old boy!_

_Today we have both made what will be the best decisions of our lives._

_We say happy birthday not to you, nor I, or even your dear mother, today, we celebrate the birth of our lives as parental figures!_

_I am sure the two of us will make spiffing parents and do a bang-up job of raising our respective feisty youngsters._

_Stiff upper lip old boy, and lather yourself up with elbow grease, you’re certainly going to need it!_

_-Signed, Uncle Harley._

 

 

What.

The.

Fuck.

A curious numbness seeps into your limbs, spreading from your fingers- which slip off of the smooth wood and metal of your gun- to your legs, which suddenly feel like they couldn’t hold the weight of a feather, let alone you.

You drop the gun.

John rushes forward to catch you as your legs buckle, popping his shoulder underneath your armpit to keep you aloft.

“I can see it’ll take some time for you to adjust”, he smiles, but gently, less exuberantly than before.

“I’ll explain when we get to the house,” he says, motioning with his head for the twins to help him with you. Fruit lips- Dave- takes the spot under your free arm, wrapping his right arm around your waist to hoist you to your feet. A jolt of electricity runs through you at his touch, shocking you with its intensity, even in your trance-like state. He smells like the sea after rain. It makes you feel giddy.

Rose stoops down and scoops up the fallen rifle, giving you a skeptical look as she brushes past you to head the group.

And then, you’re moving.

Up, up, up through the forest to your lofty home, a home which now feels more alien and unknown than even this group of complete strangers, strangers who turned up out of the blue and shattered your world.

Forever.


End file.
